Oh - look at the time. It's almost beer thirty!

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Best Albums of 2020 list...

#26 : Gold Record - Bill Callahan

On Bill Callahan’s 2013 album Dream River, he compared finding love to mastering flight, registering his surprise at the ease of it all. His two subsequent albums set their gaze on an ever-widening horizon, and on the strikingly pared-back Gold Record he appoints himself universal co-pilot, inviting you on to his wavelength. He’s an evangelist for marriage, even with its wrinkles; a Zen advocate for finding everyday transcendence in neighbourly interactions and breakfast rituals; resistant to dogma – his horror at the young male protest singer he sees on a late-night talk show is hilarious – and open to connection wherever he might find it. “It’s all one river crossing,” he sings, inviting you to stop resisting and step right in.

I'd never even heard of Bill Callahan, so I was somewhat surprised to find out he's been producing stuff either under his name or under the name "Smog" since 1990.  And the description above didn't exactly give me a lot to go on, so I was coming to this blind - and what a strange record it is!

It's a bit like having an amusing neighbour round telling you stories whilst a guitar and some other perfectly pleasant instruments play along in the background - something like a stripped back John Grant or Bright Eyes.  It's full of wry observations, some of which hit home and some of which glide by, but you have to really listen to it to get the full effect.  I listened to it very early in the morning and it suited the situation well - nice mellow tones washing over me.

However - I'm not entirely sure why you'd listen to it more than a couple of times.  After all, once you've heard all the neighbour's stories, they start to drag.  I also suspect if I'd listened to this during the day, I would have been harsher on it in a kind of "oh, get to the point, man!" kinda way.

Interestingly, Wikipedia takes great pains to mention how nice he is on this record compared with previous efforts where he has been super grumpy, so I'm intrigued to investigate some of his earlier stuff (I don't mind an amusingly grumpy person from time to time).  The other fact I took away from Wikipedia is that he has a son and named him Bass - I'm intrigued as to whether it's a musical or a fishing link but either way I'm not convinced it's a great choice.  Considering this album, I enjoyed listening to it (especially considering some of the other selections I could have made for 3am which would not have worked at all well at that time) - but I'd struggle to wholeheartedly recommend it beyond its status as a curiousity.

#25 : Untitled (Rise) - Sault

Twelve weeks on from one classic Sault album, Untitled (Black Is), came another, winnowing classic Black musical forms into one another: psychedelic soul, Afrobeat, electro-funk, performance poetry, trip-hop, jazz and more. You can identify the collectivism that also charged up the Black Lives Matter movement this year in these songs of solidarity, hope, pain and catharsis, filled as they are with chants and swelling vocal harmonies; the anonymity of the group’s members itself suggests a goal bigger than any one individual. But there are so many particular musical voices across these songs, such as the witheringly hilarious woman on You Know It Ain’t, that it’s never monolithic but rather a collection of personalities.

I'd already listened to a Sault album from this year because of the good reviews, so I somewhat surprised to find out this wasn't it - I'd listened to the equalled untitled album from June instead.  I'd quite liked that one, so was suspecting to like this one as well - and my feeling is that this one seemed to stick with me a bit more (but maybe because I'm doing this exercise!).

I'm not entirely sure how I'd describe the music - Wikipedia describes Sault as "rhythm and blues" which gives you a hint but there's a reasonable mix of tracks spread across the rhythm to blues spectrum and other places as well.  Some tracks have a very strong beat, some have none at all - I liked "I Just Want To Dance" which has a good hook, "The Black And Gold" which is just a very cool slow tempo track and "You Know It Ain't" which has a very well done stylised spoken vocal with a pointed message.  The general musical feel reminded me a bit of Lemon Jelly - if that means anything to anyone any more.

The other thing I learned from Wikipedia about Sault is that "despite critical acclaim, they eschew interaction with the media" and their two previous albums were called 5 and 7 and personally I fully applaud such gnomic nonsense!  I wouldn't describe this album as essential, but I enjoyed listening to it - particularly "You Know It Ain't"

#28/27 - One good, one not so much
#24/23 - One good, one not so much (again)